Scenes From an American Back Road
by psiChic
Summary: Random freeze frames along the road, looks into the guys' past and present. Wee!chesters, the occasional Limp!Sam, Angsty!Both, Banter, and so on. Rated T for safety, because Dean likes to swear. Sammy too.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Just a short one-shot, part of a series. No idea how long it will end up! BTW, this is my first fanfic, so please review truthfully and all that. Thanks. :-)

I don't own Supernatural, it owns me. Want proof? See my life. ;)

Scenes From an American Back Road, Part One

The low growl of the Impala threatened to lull him to sleep, which, considering the swelling lump on the back of his head and the fact that he hadn't hit a musty pillow for about thirty six hours, was extremely dangerous. Concussions were never fun, that much he recalled, but other details, such as why his brother had suddenly decided now was the time to impress the world with spectacularly vomit-inducing donuts in the grass or how come dozens of tiny fireflies had gathered directly in his line of vision, completely obscuring what he was sure were important details, seemed to slip through the cracks of his usually air-tight mind. Determined to put a stop to this anarchy, he objected with a muffled "Mmuh…" Just to reinforce his point, his eyelids promptly drooped shut.

"Hey, Sam. Sammy! Come on, man. Wakey wakey." called Dean, upon noticing his brother's head falling with a _thud_ into the passenger window.

"M'awake…" said Sam sleepily, fooling no one. For no sooner did he say this, than the sun decided to take another rest, and Sam happily went along with it.

"Sam…" Dean pushed harder on the gas, willing his baby to go faster while glancing around to check for unwanted attention by the fine boys in blue. "You gotta stay awake, man. Don't know how many times I gotta say this. You have to stay conscious until I get you checked out. Tell you every damn time…maybe if you'd stop letting every baddie we run into use your head as a punching bag, you'd remember me saying it…" Dean said that last part a little louder, hoping to get a rise out of Sam (and simultaneously keep him awake). He wasn't disappointed.

"I don't _let_ them, jerk. Maybe if you'd been paying attention to IT instead of groping the waitress, I wouldn't have been hit." responded Sam slowly, temporarily more alert due to the injustice of his idiot brother's rambling. He attempted to sit up straight, thought better of it, and waited patiently for the car to roll back over.

"Dude, I was not _groping_ her, I was protecting her. That is what we do, you know. Save people, hunt things. Pretty sure I've told you this already too." said Dean with a sideways glance and a smirk, "Besides, you said you had it."

"Yeah, the _gun_. You threw me the gun, and I said I had it. Then I was on the floor, while you and Miss Free Pie for Models and Movie Stars' found a booth to make out in."

"Whoa whoa whoa. We didn't _make out_, Sam. It was one thank you kiss. She was relieved, what can I say? And that pie was good." Dean's smirk was getting wider, growing in proportion to Sam's annoyance.

"Relieved? What the hell did she have to be relieved about? The thing was still alive, tackling ME." said Sam, voice growing stronger, he added, "Ditz."

Glad that he seemed to be almost fully awake now, Dean kept the conversation going with, "Hey now. Don't attack Karen—"

"Michelle." supplied Sam with a roll of his eyes that hurt far worse than it should have.

"That's what I said. _Michelle_. Anyway, don't attack her just 'cause you let it get the drop on you. Not like you never handled anything like it before. We've only been doing this what, our whole lives?" continued Dean, making a right hand turn into the nearly empty motel parking lot.

"Didn't see it…" Sam's voice was trailing off again. Time to get him inside and checked for bleeding, pupil dilation, etc. Sad how nightly health checks and field medication was one of the closest things to tradition this family had.

Dean, determined to keep his brother talking, got out and jogged around to the passenger side saying, "Didn't see it? Maybe _you're_ the one with the hots for Mandy, Bringer of Free Pie. You seem to know exactly what she was doing the whole time, but you failed to notice the six feet of ugly leaping toward you?"

Sam, who had been focused on keeping said pie down instead of listening to Dean, was suddenly reminded of a strong, deep voice telling a young boy the best way to maim and kill a…something. He couldn't quite remember what, but he didn't dwell on that, as more of this memory, or concussion induced whatever, was flooding his brain.

"Silver's always a safe bet," he was saying to the boy in the chair next to him, toes barely touching the ground. "But you want to make sure. Do as much research as you can, ask around, look it up. Don't want to shoot it with the wrong ammo and make it angrier. Understand?"

"Yes, sir." responded the boy, who was hanging on every one of his father's words. That is, until a toddler decided his juice box would be better if it could fly, and promptly tested this theory.

Sam had a vague feeling of agreement with the little one (himself, go figure), but Dean was talking so he let it go and paid attention.

"Sammy! You _just_ had a bath! That juice isn't water, and your cookies aren't soap." said Dean in his best little boy imitation of a scolding parent. He obviously didn't get the subtle art of beverage aviation.

"Fly, Dean! Fly!!" squealed Sam in response, flapping his arms around and spraying more juice across the floor, which _clearly_ meant "This juice is disagreeable. May I please amuse myself in an alternate fashion while the two of you finish up?"

Just-turned-seven year old Dean didn't understand this gesture either, it seemed, as he quickly made a reach for the juice box and ended up covered in a sticky purple liquid, much to Sam's delight.

"Purple!!" proclaimed Sam, giggling madly at his now dripping big brother. "Dean is purple!!"

"Purple's for girls, Sammy." said Dean with a scrunched up face to show his displeasure, "Ew,"

Sam, however, either did not notice his brother's comment or deemed it unimportant, for he responded by throwing an Oreo at nothing in particular and squeezing the juice box harder. Then, dodging the fountain of grape juice, two large hands scooped the toddler up and grabbed the offending beverage (or what was left of it) and tossed it in the trash.

"Alright, Sammy. That's enough. We don't throw food." John said sternly, looking his baby in the eye.

"Neck juice!" said Sam happily in explanation. Apparently, the juice box had changed form in the last few seconds. Blame it on his rapidly developing imagination.

"Neck juice?" questioned John with a quizzical look, shifting his gaze down to Dean for help. "What's he mean, neck juice'?

Dean, who was now sopping up the mess and attempting to remove the stickiness from his hair, said knowingly, "Holy water. He calls in neck juice' 'cause of the rosary. He means necklace'." then to Sam, "But I'm not a demon. So don't spray me!"

John was quiet for a moment before addressing his youngest, "We only throw holy _water,_ not juice, and definitely not cookies, Sam. And your brother's right, holy water is for demons, not people." He held his smiling Sammy a little longer, possibly contemplating the fact that he had just given both his extremely young sons a course in weapons training for the supernatural, before setting him back down and heading to the sink for a wet rag to clean his boys up.

The memory ended here, and Sam was brought back to the present by a very grown up Dean shaking his shoulder roughly.

"…no way in hell am I carrying your sasquatch ass into the room, Sam. Freakin' giant. Wake up!"

"Whaaa" was Sam's scholarly retort, as he attempted to move in the direction Dean was pulling. The result was a nasty bit of vertigo.

"Nice of you to join us," grunted Dean, masking his relief that Sam was awake and at least partially coherent. "Bitch."

Sam's spinning head prevented him from properly responding, but he was now taking slow steps toward the room, with Dean carrying only part of his weight. It would have to do.

Dean fumbled with the keycard for a few seconds before managing to unlock and kick open the door while still partially holding a now mumbling Sam upright. He guided him over to the bed and began examining yet another head wound. At least nobody had gotten strangled or thrown into any walls this time.

"Well, you're not bleeding. And your pupils look—" Dean re-checked just to make sure, "normal. So I don't know what all your moaning is about." He finished by handing an ice pack to Sam, who was looking up at him blearily from his seat on the bed. "What?"

"That was weird…"

"Not really. You get hit enough times you're bound to form some scar tissue or something." said Dean with a half smile, "Or maybe College Boy's brain is just too fat to be slammed up against his skull."

"Not that…"

"Or _maybe_, your brain's already permanently damaged. This is the real you, and all this time you've been walking around with a bruised –"

"That doesn't even make sense, asshole." cut in Sam, regaining coherency at last. "And if anyone has brain damage, it's you."

"Ah come on, Sammy. Such harsh words for your caretaker." replied Dean with a feigned hurt look, placing his hand over his heart, "That hurts. Really."

Sam glared and Dean relented, changing his tone, "You need anything else?"

Thinking for a moment, Sam smiled and answered "Do we have any grape juice?"

"Okay, random."

"What? It's a good color for you." said Sam, smiling at his new memory and wondering just how mad Dean would get if he had to wash juice out of his hair tonight. Probably best to do it while he was sleeping.

"Oookay, Sammy. Maybe I missed something. Let me see your head again," said Dean, staring at Sam like he was an alien. "'Cause there ain't no friggin' way purple is my color."

Sam just smiled and let his brother check him over again, wondering if it was possible to make all-powerful demon repellant Neck Juice out of grapes.

The End


	2. Chick Flick Moment Number 137

A/N: Takes place some time sfter scene 1, but not necessarily connected. Thanks to my LLS for the super fast beta!!:)

Still don't own 'em.

Scenes From an American Back Road, Part Two: Chick Flick Moment Number 137

It continued to be a mystery to him, how these moments, which he profusely swore were against the very fiber of his being, kept popping up at the oddest of times. He would even go so far as to plan _not_ to have the conversation, think ahead for pre-made topics of distraction. The manlier, the better. He was a Winchester, after all, and they simply did not do touchy-feely. Beer, women, and guns. Those were the subjects of hunters. At least that's how it had been since the fire, and that was far too long ago to think about without crossing into the aforementioned dangerous territory of "emotion". Seeing as how he was the only one left who could even remember such times, the conundrum that was his younger brother persisted to baffle him. How is it that someone who never had a mother, who was raised by a marine-turned-ghostbuster and a velvety-smooth badass hunter such as himself, who had never had an "I love you." (in the form of actual words) in his life, could turn out to be such a…chick?

Now don't get me wrong, Sam was good. He knew his stuff, had Dean's back 100, and could handle an exorcism like nobody's business. During the hunt, Sam's game face was just as stoically focused as his own. But after…that's when he got weird. Always wanting to _explore_ the _feelings_. Seriously sucked out loud, especially when said feelings were currently being repressed into oblivion. Unhealthy? Yes. But hey, exactly which part of the Food-So-Greasy-the-Paper's-See-through, Get Shot at While Tracking Spawn of the Demon Who Killed Your Mother, Hustle Pool in the Seediest Possible Bar Lifestyle was healthy? Thank you very much. The point is, for someone who enjoyed "quiet time" as much as a threesome on a bed of twenties, the guy sure didn't know when to shut up.

"Hey, Dean," started Sam after a particularly gruesome hunt involving a nasty vengeful spirit, underline vengeful. He had that look in his eyes, the one that brought women to their knees and older brothers to poetry readings and crap like that.

Hoping to forestall the inevitable, he flipped the radio on and pretended not to hear. A brilliant plan, if it weren't for that pesky college learning.

"Dean." Sam said louder, turning the radio off. Annoying little bitch.

"What? I was listening to that!" responded Dean with a glare. Dude just touched his car. If it had been anyone else, they would have lost a hand.

"No you weren't. You just turned it on like, two seconds ago." said Sam, rolling his eyes. Another annoying habit. Unfortunately, he wasn't finished, "I wanted to ask you something."

_This close_ to reaching for the radio again, Dean sighed. Maybe he just wanted to ask about the Impala's engine or if he wanted to hit a couple bars tonight. Yeah, that was it. A guy can hope, right?

"What, Sam? This better be important. I liked that song."

Ignoring that last comment, he started again, "You think they'll remember this? The kids, I mean. The spirit terrorizing their parents…what it did to their dog?" Oh God. Speaking of kicked puppies, Sammy here looked like the definition of pitiful. Of course, the dog in question wasn't so much kicked, as thrown from the second story window into a tree…yeah. Vengeful spirits'll do that.

"I don't know, Sam. They were pretty young. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Not much we can do about it. At least they still have their parents, and their lives. It could have been worse." said Dean with a glance toward the grave they had just finished desecrating. It was true. They had gotten off lucky. With the amount of damage that thing did to the house, it was a miracle any of them got out alive. 'Maybe that worked.' thought Dean. 'State the facts, give it a good spin. Keep the brood to a minimum.'

Dammit.

"Well, they're around the same age as you were when Mom died." stated Sam, as if it were relevant. "And you remember that night. At least parts of it, right?"

Didn't they already have this conversation? "Yeah, Sam, but that was different." 'Please, please, please let him drop it!' thought Dean. Alas, no.

"How? Supernatural being traumatizes children and family. The only difference is—"

"Nobody died. Except Underdog there, but hey, crap happens." interrupted Dean. The problem was, he had just brought the subject dangerously close to his own "trauma", not something he wanted to discuss at the moment.

Sam was quiet for a minute. And then another. Did he really care that much about the damn dog? Hating broody Sam more than 20 questions Sam, Dean added, "I'm sure they'll get another dog. It's not like it was gonna live forever anyway."

Still not responding, Dean was getting annoyed, and a little worried. He was about to voice his feelings (in an impressive string of insults, no doubt) when Sam spoke suddenly,

"What's the first thing you remember?"

"Come again?"

"The first thing, like…your earliest memory?"

'What the hell?' thought Dean, and then said, "Dude, what the hell?"

Sam laughed a little at the expression of confusion etched across Dean's handsome features, "Just wonderin'"

"Uhh…ok." said Dean slowly, staring at his brother as if he had just decided evening gowns were practical hunting attire. "What does this have to do with anything, again?"

Sam appeared to be thinking for a moment, and then, "Just answer the question. I wanna see something."

Trying to figure out how this had anything to do with anything, and simultaneously pondering the fact that Sam seemed to be roping him into yet another sharing and caring session, Dean pushed the other two problems aside and thought about the question. His earliest memory… The first thing that popped into his mind was, as expected, the fire.

Knowing that that couldn't be, or it would mean he couldn't remember his mother, he reached farther back.

He was in the Impala, the backseat. Dad was there, and Mom was…Mom had already left. "When are we gonna see Mommy?" he had asked, probably for the seventh time in the last ten minutes.

"Soon, Dean-o." came the deep and excited reply of his father. He missed that voice, the assurance and safety it held… "We're gonna see your new brother too."

"Is he nice?" A fair question. Didn't want a bitchy little ass-hat for a brother.

Dad chuckled, and Dean stopped for a moment to reflect on the fact that Dad had freakin' _chuckled_. 'Man, Sammy, if only you knew him back then…' thought Dean wistfully.

"You never know, kiddo. Probably depends on how nice you are to him." said Dad with a smile. "You _are_ the big brother now. A lot's riding on your shoulders."

Hell yeah, a lot was on his shoulders. Wouldn't have it any other way, either.

"I know, Dad," came Dean's exasperated four year-old voice, "You and Mommy told me about a _hundred bagillion_ times." He held up ten fingers for emphasis.

"That many, huh? Well…I guess you'll know all about it then." said Dad with a smile that crinkled his eyes. "Come on, we're here."

Some time later, felt like years, they were on their way down a hallway with a million doors that all looked the same, when Dean stopped and pulled on his father's hand.

"What's up, Dean?" asked Dad, eager to see his wife and baby boy.

"What if…" started Dean, and then very fast, "What if the new baby doesn't like me, and I try really hard and am nice to him and play with him and teach him all the stuff I'm s'posed to and don't hit him hard or anything like that and he still doesn't like me?" Dean then became very interested with his shoelaces.

John was silent for a second, then bent down to be eye to eye with his eldest, "Don't worry about it, son. If you do half the things you just said, this kid is gonna have the best big brother on the planet. No way he'll not like you. In fact, he'll do one better. He'll love you no matter what you do. Know why?"

A little head shook, and John smiled. Dean nearly mouthed the words that came next from his father's mouth, but he was vaguely aware that Sam was still waiting for a reply in real time, and thought it best to move this little reminiscence-fest along.

"Because Dean, family isn't replaceable. When you walk into that room, and you see him for the first time, you're gonna understand it. You two have more in common than anyone in the world, right off the bat. He's _your_ little brother, yours alone. And you're the only big brother he has to look up to. At the end of the day, you two will always have each other. Nothing else matters."

Dean smiled, looked at his Dad and said, "Okay! Can we see him now?"

John laughed again and replied, scooping Dean up, "Come on."

They walked the rest of the way down the hall, into a room with some machines and stuff and, more importantly, his mother.

"Mommy!" squealed Dean - wait, not squealed. Called. - "Where is he?" Dean looked around the room as if expecting his little brother to come marching out of a closet, not noticing the tiny bundle in his mother's arms.

"Shh, not so loud, baby." said Mary in a voice that made Dean ache. "Sammy's sleeping."

Dean, finally seeing the mass of blanketed pinkness that was his brother, said in a valiant attempt at a whisper, "Sammy?"

"Or Sam," offered John, moving around to sit on the side of Mary's bed. "Short for Samuel."

"Sammy." announced Dean, as if he had just christened the kid. Truth is, if his mother had called Sam 'Kumquat', he would have too. That's just the way it is.

"You wanna try holding him, buddy?" asked Mom, with one of those smiles he hadn't seen in so long. "You just have to be careful, Daddy will show you how."

Did he want to hold him? Hell yeah, he wanted to hold him! Not that he'd ever tell Sam that, of course. "Yes!"

Dean remembered Dad taking Sam from Mom and telling him to sit in the chair by the window. Then Mom mimed holding a baby, supporting the head and all that, and Dean mimicked her the best he could. Finally, John placed the newborn Sam into Dean's arms for the first time.

Suddenly, John was shoving Sam into his arms again, only this time he was crying and Mommy was on the ceiling. It was so hot, and Dad was yelling something, "Now, Dean. Go!"

"Dean?"

"What? Oh, yeah, uh…" stuttered Dean. Why was it that every time he thought about his mother, this happened? Damn Sam. Opening the non-existent emotional scars… "My first memory?"

"Yeah." replied Sam simply, still with that friggin' look in his eyes. Where the hell did he learn that?

"Uh," grunted Dean. He could always lie, say it was the first time he heard _Back in Black_ or something. Sam would probably get the hint and drop it. "The day you were born."

"Yeah?" Sam said again, his look changing slightly. Now his eyes were a little surprised and shooting Dean warm and fuzzies. Oh God.

"Yeah. What's with the monosyllables? And why the hell do you wanna know this all the sudden?" asked Dean quickly, not quite sure if he wanted the answer.

"I was just thinking—"

"Shocking."

" I was just thinking," continued Sam with yet another eye roll, "that this might end up as the kids' first memory. And about how that would seriously screw them up. I thought yours would be the fire, and—"

"That I was an anomaly? Seeing as how I'm not screwed up, I'm wonderful." supplied Dean with a trademark smirk. Upon seeing Sam's less than happy reaction, Dean added, "I'm sure the kids have boat loads of happy memories from before this fiasco. Don't worry about it."

"Why not? These kids have seen evil, Dean. I mean, haven't you ever stopped and thought about what happens after we leave, after the hunt? How the victims pick up the pieces? Their whole lives, everything they believed in. Gone. You don't wonder about it?" asked Sam, and dammit he was _seriously_ worried about this.

"No." Dean answered, "Know why?"

Sam's head shook and Dean smiled, "Because Sam, family isn't replaceable. But the house, the car, the dog, all that is. You'd understand it if we stuck around to watch them see what's really out there in the world for the first time. Their family is _theirs_, and theirs alone. No angry-ass crack head ghost is gonna change that. At the end of the day, they'll always have each other. Nothing else matters."

Sam stared at his brother unspeaking, knowing the conversation was over. Dean couldn't help but be a little amused at the look of…almost _awe _on his brother's face. It's not like he _couldn't_ do chick flick, it's just that he avoided it at all costs. He was a Winchester, after all. They simply did not do that.

-The End-


End file.
